On the Importance of Networking During Fire Drills

Morning Thoughts #12

There is wisdom in questioning the world's direction after much reflection, but any unthinking impulse to simply turn back and return, a rigid, overly cautious stance spurred by no creative insight, is nothing more than a call for plastic surgery. An idea is aging, a country is aging—let us give this nation…a nose job! Really, is there anything sadder and more bound to fail than this?

The prevalence of this plastic impulse is just one more indication of a political landscape now completely stripped of all creativity—on one side seething resentment and the urge to punish and on the other a thoughtless rigidity and fear of change! Woe to the one who removes the veil of their ideological leanings to look at the reality of today's political situation.

The system as we know it has entered its death spiral, and soon, the only safe place will be completely outside of it. For now, though, treat whatever daily crisis (honestly, a great name for a newspaper) that is lighting up your news and social media feeds as just another fire drill. And, as we lull outside waiting for the all clear, work to find your creative tribe.

Because it's all really too much for any one thinking person—as the true believers from all ideological angles surround us with their repeated slogans, unconscious chants, and dirges in their modern-day, social media-greased Latin. Better to read another book, sing another song, write another line, and find others busy in the same keys and on related pages. So much depends on our future collaboration!